Team Herald
PONDA: Taking strong objection to the attempts by their detractors to confuse the public, MGP has condemned the fake news circulating and denied that its president Deepak Dhavalikar had any plans to withdraw from the Shiroda bypoll election.
Furthermore, strengthening their resolve with regard to the bypolls, Deepak confirmed that the party would contest in all three assembly bypolls – Shiroda, Mandrem and Mapusa.
Earlier in the day, rumours had spread like wildfire on account of the fake news, that Deepak was going to withdraw from the Shiroda bypoll, following which Deepak, who was campaigning in Shiroda, condemned the rumours, which he said had been spread on social media. He pointed out that he had received several questions about the same and elaborated that the rumours had claimed that he had been appointed as the Chairman of Goa State Infrastructure Development Council (GSIDC); and also that the MGP’s Central Committee had resolved to replace him with Parshuram Kotkar as the new president of the party.
Speaking to Herald on the sidelines of his door to door campaign in Vazem Shiroda, which witnessed a turnout of a large number of supporters; Deepak claimed that his rivals are frustrated and thus had spread those rumours.
He added that he has appealed to Goans and the people of Shiorda not to fall prey to such rumours and that had been circulated to create confusion amongst the voter base.
On the same note, he went on to point out that it is not easy to remove the party president and that there needs to be a general body meeting of the party to remove the president. He further pointed out that no such meeting was held, to take such a decision.
“I am contesting from Shiroda constituency for the bypoll and that is the only truth. MGP is also contesting all the three bypolls including Mandrem and Mapusa and MGP will be holding a meeting next week on this,” said Deepak, while adding that the meeting will look at giving ‘good candidates’ for Mandrem and Mapusa.
Deepak added that MGP’s Central Committee meeting scheduled to take place next week, will also discuss the upcoming Lok Sabha (LS) elections. He was responding to a query if the MGP would have an alliance with the BJP for the LS elections and added that at the forthcoming meeting, MGP leaders would deliberate on this and a decision would be taken accordingly.
Responding to a query about recent speculation that former Chief Minister and former BJP MLA from Mandrem Laxmikant Parsekar could be contesting on the MGP ticket from Mandrem, Deepak said that so far, he has not held any meeting with Parsekar in this regard. It may be recalled that former Congress MLA from Mandrem constituency Dayanand Sopte had resigned from the Congress party and joined the BJP and is likely to contest on the BJP ticket.
